hey guys, i been saving money so i can get a middle of the line system that bumps so you can hear it outside my car....but b4 the flaming starts....i've had a change of heart.

I want loud SQ INSIDE the car.

before i discovered this awesome forum....i purchased alpine type S coaxials all around. and now im thinking that was a bad decision. im not happy with the quality nor the clarity. i am kind of confused at one thing....while sifting through these threads, do i understand correctly when i hear that many SQ applications use ONLY front components on a 2 channel speaker amp, and NO rear fill.??

if this is so, what are some middle of the line components that give GREAT clarity? i LOVE music, expecially acoustic punk, but with the occasional hip-hop. Unless i come across a really good deal or some highly recommended suggestions, i am pretty set on a RE SE12 with a BX1500D or Bx1000D. in a vented box with a low tuning freq.

ill probably end up getting an Alpine CDA-9813 and a profile amp....i guess im looking for suggestions, and just get some friendly banter going.

green_slip

02-09-2004, 11:47 PM

look for cdt-61a's on www.thezeb.com they are 150 +s/h. do a simple search on this forum and you will see how great these components are. and yes for absolute best SQ you want front comps no rear fill as rear fill tends to distort.

nosaj070

02-10-2004, 06:01 PM

look for cdt-61a's on www.thezeb.com they are 150 +s/h. do a simple search on this forum and you will see how great these components are. and yes for absolute best SQ you want front comps no rear fill as rear fill tends to distort.

Rear fill does not distort unless they are overpowered or played out of their frequency range. SQers dislike rear fill because it draws the soundstage away from the front of the car (Think rock concert). You really need to go to a shop and just listen to whats there and decide. So far i've bought 2 component sets without listening to them, and I hate both of them. The big key is silk tweeter=soft, any metal=harsh. But alpine tricked me, on the type-xs it is soft dome, yet is still harsh, and not clear. Just listen to anything you can, Also the entire board pretty much is going to recomend the CL-61a's even though over half of them probably havn't even heard them. I have, and they are good, but there are still better for not really that much more money.

The next most important part is the install of them, for true sq you want to put them in kick panels, but in many cases thats impracticle, so mounting in the a-pillar, sail panel, or door panel are your only other options really.

helotaxi

02-10-2004, 08:42 PM

SQ people disagree on the subject of rear fill. Ideally rear fill should be just that, fill. They should be basically imperceptible with the rest of the system going, but their absence should be noticed when they are turned off. USACi feels its worth 5 points on SQ scoring and complete absence of rear fill is giving away 5 easy points. The trick is getting the proper balance between the front and rear within the constraints of the power classes in the competition circuits. Most non-competitors run their rear fill off the HU power. It will begin to distort and really scream as the HU amp begins to clip. This will really jack up the sound stage and drag the image to the rear as the distortion adds a lot of high frequency noise that draws attention to the speakers behind you even though they are not getting nearly as much power as the front stage. If you are going to run rear fill, and there is no reason not to if you want it or if you will compete in SQ, integrating it with the rest of the system is just as critical to the tuning of your system as playing with the EQ and crossover.

1) Power. There are several ways to go about properly powering your fill speakers. HU power is the least reliable, as the HU runs out of gas and starts to distort horribly as discussed above. A four channel amp works, but once the system is properly tuned, you are wasting a ton of power which isn't a big deal in the higher power classes or if you don't compete. In the lower classes this really isn't an option. The last option is run your front and rear speakers off of a two channel amp in parallel with a variable resistor (L-pad) in series with the rear speakers. As you increse the value of the resistor, you shift more of the power to the front speakers and less to the rear (you also waste more power as heat but it is less potential wasted than with a 4-channel amp).

2) Speakers. Unless you are running a surround processor, you do not need, nor indeed want, full range speakers in the rear. High frequencies are easier for your ear to localize and high frequencies coming from behind you will drag the soundstage rearward away from where you want it. You also want the rear speakers to have close to the same efficiency and response curve as the front speakers that will be playing the same frequency range (midrange). Using the same speaker (brand, size and model) as the front stage is the obvious solution.

3) Processing. In a perfect world, every speaker is on its own channel giving you total control over frequency and delay for every speaker in the car. In a system with no constraints on power, this is the way to go. A bit of delay on the rear speakers will add a bit of reverb effect to the system and simulate a larger listening room which is generally considered a good thing. If you are dealing with a low powered system with everything running off two amp channels, delay is obviously not possible. That is one of the tradeoffs in running a low powered system. Proper frequency filtering is a must also. You must ensure that the rear fill are not trying to play too low or too high. Too low and you get distortion. Too high and your staging is thrown off and/or you get outside the optimal frequency range of the driver you are using and the response goes to pot. A band pass filter, be it active, passive or a combination is a must.

4) Mounting. This is the step that is the most often overlooked. As the car came from the factory, most likely the rear speakers are running free-air in the rear deck. If you just put your rear fill speakers in the factory location, even with an adaptor plate to get your smaller driver to go in a 6x9 opening, they will get savaged by the air being moved by your subs (most likely mounted in the trunk). To keep the fill from distorting and also to prolong their life, you must put some kind of enclosure around them. This can be quite easy, or quite difficult depending on the car and how elaborate you want to get. Simple; build and MDF enclosure for your drivers and bolt it to the rear deck from underneath. More complex; integrate the enclosure into the rear deck. Full custom; completely replace the rear deck with a piece fabricated from MDF and fiberglass that incorporates the enclosures for the rear fill drivers and anything else you want to put back there (amps, EQ's, crossovers, power distribution, etc...).

5) Tuning. I saved this for last, but it is the single most important. You can have everything else perfect and totally ruin everything by not spending the time to properly tune the rear fill to integrate with the rest of the system, resulting in all your hard work sounding like crap. Know what your outcome should sound like first. Listen to a good car system or home system with proper rear fill and carefully make mental notes about how it sounds. Go out to your car with this still fresh in your mind (your memory of sounds and especially sound placement is very volatile, you won't remember this information for long) and start making adjustments to get your system as close to the reference as possible. You are usually better off starting with no fill and slowly adding it in rather than starting with it cranking and turning it down. Make adjustments using the fader or amp gain (the final setting should be so low that ending up with too high a gain setting and clipping the amp will be almost impossible) if the fill is on its own channels. Write down the final settings you end up with. This will come in handy if you ever get the urge to fiddle and muck it up; you know what to set it back to. If you are using L-pads, mark the pad with the setting you ended up with and write it down, too.

Hope I cleared up a few things for some people and at least answered more questions than I created.

wickedmax

02-10-2004, 09:46 PM

thank you helotaxi!! that's the kind of response im looking for. you've been very helpful....so considering this info, and that i will not be competing. does this sound alright?

-a pair of cdt-61a's up front (speaker in stock door panels, and tweets in the A-pillar or the dash)
-powered by a Profile CA440 (4x60W bridged, so if i need / want front and rear fill i can change)
- did you say IF i do get rear fill, make it the same? (so another set of cdt-61A's
- Alpine CDA-9813 headunit, with built-in crossovers and time delay.
- RE SE12 , sealed, with appropriate amp to power it.
- yellow top battery
any other suggestions uys...?

helotaxi

02-10-2004, 10:57 PM

Check the link in geolemon's response to your other post about this in the General Discussion forum.

helotaxi

02-10-2004, 11:41 PM

thank you helotaxi!! that's the kind of response im looking for. you've been very helpful....so considering this info, and that i will not be competing. does this sound alright?

-a pair of cdt-61a's up front (speaker in stock door panels, and tweets in the A-pillar or the dash)
-powered by a Profile CA440 (4x60W bridged, so if i need / want front and rear fill i can change)
- did you say IF i do get rear fill, make it the same? (so another set of cdt-61A's
- Alpine CDA-9813 headunit, with built-in crossovers and time delay.
- RE SE12 , sealed, with appropriate amp to power it.
- yellow top battery
any other suggestions uys...?
I would opt for a good two channel amp with a bit more power. The US Acoustics USX-2100 comes highly recommended by many on this board but I have no personal experience with them. If you want rear fill (I doubt you will) you can always get a tiny 2-channel amp later.

For the fill speakers themselves if you decide that you want them, all you need is the mid. CDT speakers use Vifa mids I think, and I'm sure someone on here could give you the model number, if not here, then soundillusions forum would have someone that knows.

limitkid7

02-16-2004, 04:06 AM

hey guys, i been saving money so i can get a middle of the line system that bumps so you can hear it outside my car....but b4 the flaming starts....i've had a change of heart.

I want loud SQ INSIDE the car.

before i discovered this awesome forum....i purchased alpine type S coaxials all around. and now im thinking that was a bad decision. im not happy with the quality nor the clarity. i am kind of confused at one thing....while sifting through these threads, do i understand correctly when i hear that many SQ applications use ONLY front components on a 2 channel speaker amp, and NO rear fill.??

if this is so, what are some middle of the line components that give GREAT clarity? i LOVE music, expecially acoustic punk, but with the occasional hip-hop. Unless i come across a really good deal or some highly recommended suggestions, i am pretty set on a RE SE12 with a BX1500D or Bx1000D. in a vented box with a low tuning freq.

ill probably end up getting an Alpine CDA-9813 and a profile amp....i guess im looking for suggestions, and just get some friendly banter going.